Thursday, February 25, 2010

PORT AU PRINCE, February 20.— More than 4,000 Haitian children and their families so far have joined in a Cuban program aimed at helping Haitians recover from post-earthquake psychosocial trauma.

Cuban psychologist Alexis Lorenzo, an expert from Havana’s Latin American Center for Disaster Medicine, explained that the program being implemented by the Cuban medical mission in Haiti will serve as the methodological base for a national psychosocial support program for children and young people to be implemented by the Ministry of Education.

The initiative also incorporates Haitian experiences from previous disasters and that of long serving International organizations in Haiti, reported the Prensa Latina news agency.

One of the goals of the Cuban project, which held its 41st activity on Friday, is to help Haitian children deal with the horrifying memories of the January 12 earthquake, and from the bleak aftermath of the disaster and the daily hardships of life in the makeshift camps set up in parks and plazas. The classroom for most is only a memory and their current depressing panorama is a real detriment to overcoming the tragedy.

Cuban psychologists, along with teachers from the Haitian National School of Arts who have joined the program, continue to work hard to help children recover from the earthquake-inflicted psychosocial trauma, carrying out activities that include games, singing and drawing.